"Tagging is what we do to criminals we let out of prison early."

Not quite. Prisoners aren't tracked this effectively.

It's all very depressing :-(

Surely there are laws against the deep fat frying of schoolchildren?

Or have things not really changed much since Tom Brown's schooldays?

How namby-pamby is this? Chip in a uniform? Get one kid to bring wear 4 sweaters, and 3 friends get a free day off school, surely?

Injecting an RFID chip under the skin is surely a better option.

Then if a kid is not in school by, say, 9:03 (got to give some grace period, I suppose), send a signal that blows their head off. Oh hang on, I seem to be having a Running Man moment there. Must remember we live in an Orwellan future, not a Schwartzeneggerean future...

Excellent idea... that one person will be the diligent school pupil who was already losing out because of the disruption caused by his delinquent classmates.

Now he's getting one-to-one tuition, thereby solving the problem of class sizes at the same time!

In other news, the continued war between Oceania and Eastasia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Eurasia shows no sign of abating.

Long Live Big Brother!

=== This broadcast brought to you by the Ministry Of Truth ===

"tracking and data collection on 10 pupils within the school" this actually turned out to be one pupil but the computer said there was 10 so it must be right.

Just let the looney wifi haters know that their kids will have to be scanned by radio radiation to read these chips...

Now I know how to make sure El Reg gets put onto the national curriculum...

lets go the whole hog and implant IR transmitters and make the little blighters have to sign in to school by pointing the IR at an IR reciever which directs the browser to El Reg. Failure to do so gets them zapped.

Best get them servers upgraded for the rush ;p

What with the department for ID cards taking over the Birth Marrige and Deaths office. Now all we need is for hospitals to chip kids at birth and then take a boold sample to record their DNA. We're well screwed.

How about a "Last one to leave the country turn off the lights" icon?

Surely this is just engendering an acceptance of a surveilance future. Get the kids to accept this and by the time they reach adulthood they'll be walking blindly into an era where the authorities can and will know everything about you.

Eventually of course they'll be RFID chips on everything so you will be able to tie school vending machine purchases to the uniform (wearer). I'm not convinced that tracking in this way is a good thing.

How about fingerprint or iris recognition sensors on the door of each classroom, or swipe card readers on the teachers desk, as they saunter in they swipe in thereby registering in the process, without being tracked wherever they are in the school/local environment outside of lessons.

As some one who is generally is concerned with the rights of humans i would normally decry such a scheme or at least i would if it were adults such as with the article on a national CCTV system.

However since its kids well i think a little Orwellian style kicking is completely justified it might even encourage them to think about stuff if they were actually capable of such given the woeful (bah humbug) state of state education.

I would even suggest that this system does not go far enough and "Battle Royale" (Japanese film excellence ;-) style collars would be more appropriate. For those not familiar with this cinematic work of art they basically, after some fair warning, explode following some infraction. Imagine it, sneaking off for dinner and crowding my local sandwich shop no more, they leave the grounds and boom! It would only take a few to get the message through and parents could subsidise the scheme for the right to use them at home. Clean up cost would have to be built into the lease.

If amnesty international complain then just convert them to taser collars which comparatively is much more er "humane". Of course these would cost more and be less effective so only rich parents would get the potential benefit of preventing their children from blowing themselves up.

..(with a small 'r') used to be filled in by class teachers, who performed the useful function of checking the state as well as the presence of the individuals. Dehumanising such simple tasks early in a child's career doesn't bode well for their later socialogical development, I fear.

Although I'm amazed to see something that coherent in the Free Press, a paper whose articles are there to hold the ads apart and which made my Thursday mornings hell at the tender age of 13 - there's nothing like hauling 60 copies around at 6am on a winter morning.

The point is though, it's *voluntary*. The kids involved are doing it as an experiment. Hungerford School is a science and technology centre of excellence. It does surprise me that no-one's thought about it before but I also doubt that the kids are involved are the ones that you find in the Frenchgate Centre on a Tuesday afternoon.

... the cab is one its way...

And what about all those children in poverty ( you know, the ones the Government continually harp on about but no one ever sees!)...what happens when Johnny hands his blazer onto Tommy, who hands it on to Sarah...

"So our data indicates that Johnny has been attending for the last 10 years...."

Teacher talking to the pupil "Mr Smith, you're were in the crapper for 30 minutes at lunch, are you constipated?"

Could also help with discipline, say goodbye to the smoking club - Can't beat the excitement of toking a quick one at lunch while playing hide'n'seek with the Dinner Ladies, its like real life GTA.

Now it just got easier for me to stalk that hottie in the short skirt. She won't see me coming!

Free bag of sweets for the first child to remove their blazer and carefully hide it in the most inaccessible area of the school basement during a fire drill...

The moment they try that in my daughters school, she'll be out of there!!!

My children will then be home taught!

fortunately, the Headmistress of that school, is still completely sane and has so far always listened to the parents when it came to controversial implementations.

She has always made her decision based on a vast majority of parent's opinions, or she managed to convince the people that something was necessary! but never against parents wishes.

One of the Heads of school I have encountered (and that even including my own school career.

I am carrying my German RFID raped passport on a thin metal box since RFID is probably the most insecure data device created in the past 10 years.

I wouldn't have a problem with it, if those companies would get some sens and implement a proper crypto stack!!!

It's not difficult, but would only make their current developments obsolete.

Apart from that they are so simple to clone! It's scary, that this sort of technology is even contemplated!!!

....in more ways than one, eh?

Puns apart, although voluntary, this is leading the way to something quite distasteful. Kids getting used to being tracked leads to citizens getting used to being tracked. Not a very "independent thought" moral being taught to our young ones. Heck, the most creative ideas in school for me came out through the process of evading the headmaster and his croonies. But me thinks this most likely wont become mainstream since parents and adults still have SOME sense in them against such stupidity such as this...

...right?

Just like pollution, the next generation will have to carry the burden of the current generations laziness and unwillingness to do what is truly necessary.

Growing up is about learning how to behave and interact in a society, and unfortunately a lot of the same people who complain about chipping now are the same ones who complain about parents who discipline their children. Now we have a generation of children that have figured out that the worst punishment that anyone is 'allowed' to give them is really 'no big deal' and the gauntlet of rules and surveillance is treated like a game whit the object being to overcome the rules instead of obeying them. Students need to be put in more of a team building environment where their friends are counting on them to show up and watching out for them if they get into trouble. When the establishment decides that the students are a problem that needs to be dealt with it give rise to an 'Us against Them' mentality which only invites the children to fight back and make the problems worse.

Children need the freedom to make mistakes because experience is the best teacher. All other forms of learning are based on analogy to experience.

I'm going to be forced to have chip implanted some day for the same reason I'm forced to use a Texas Instruments calculator today. Get 'em while they're young and don't know any better and you've got a customer for life. Then just let the need for compatibility weed out anyone who dares think for themselves.

All your reverse polish is belong to us.

Ref: Chris ('Easy to fix') suggestion (School mandated underpants)

So let's get this straight. I've got Jamie Oliver telling me not to give my kids chips, and schools telling me I should for their security?

Just sounds like something else kids can have fun messing around with =) i.e. sending the chip off to mexico or something in the post

or swapping round blazers?

lol...

what a retarded idea..

Don't tell me there isn't at least one Headmaster or teacher who isn't a pedo out there.

"while ensuring parents of their children's security."

Hahahaha!

Have these morons completely forgotten Dunblane, Columbine and all the other myriad of school massacres? These were all perpetrated by people who entered the school, how can this ensure the children's security? It could catch skivers, smokers etc. but it's not going to ensure any security from people entering the school. What a spurious claim!

Ok kiddies.. Welcome to "Microwaving your school uniform 101".

To rid yourselves of those pesky RFID chips in your clothes, and many other nasties that they may contain, just pop them in the microwave for a few seconds. Just be careful of where you put the metal bits.

(When's the new "Radioactive" icon coming?)

That's what I'd have to check, without telling the offspring of course, for plausible deniability.

How long can you microwave clothes for without it showing/cooking?